small bites, from an unusual plate

Tag Archives: peeps

As far as I’m concerned, it will remain Peeps season until all of the Peeps are gone.

I’m talking about the coveted and cabineted ones. Even with the holiday in my rearview, there’s still time to increase the stash. I’ll be ‘Peep Seeking’ a little while longer in the likely vain hope of a misplaced carton or even sleeve.

I admittedly will not give up until it becomes clear I will not find this year’s coveted flavor. I sadly started the search too late, and was left standing forlornly in Target staring at the empty box labeled “Vanilla Caramel Brownie Peeps.”

I also admit that I might not have believed that was a true special occasion creation, but, as I said, I saw the empty box for myself. In retrospect, I should have photographed it. It would have made a social media plea for them an illustration of frustration and perhaps I would have been flooded with good-willed Vanilla Caramel Brownie Peeps. Sigh.

Sometimes the very thing that makes me happy, makes me sad, and then makes me laugh.

My husband, Jeff, was a man who would not even slightly hesitate to insert his entire arm into a cow’s uterus.

So, how a cute little squishy marshmallow chick could cause him to cringe, shake and gag was always beyond me.

Physically. He’d watch me bite into one, and pull his head back like he wanted to turtle into his own shoulders. He’d wave his hands at waist-level, muttering “yuck” and shivering into goosebumps.

As true love often does, I willingly made small sacrifices for Jeff, and Jeff willingly made small sacrifices for me. One of the sweetest involved the seasonal search and appropriate pre-consumption seasoning of Peeps.

Religiously poking holes in their cellophane habitats, Jeff would clandestinely hide my favorite treats somewhere I was sure never to look. You know, that almost useless over-the-stove cabinet that only tall giant-sized people ever consider an actual place to store things.

He went to all this trouble for two very good reasons.

The first was so that the adorable, delicious candy creatures would be ever-so-slightly crunchy-stale when he ceremoniously presented them to me on whatever holiday it was we were celebrating.

The second was for the kiss he knew he would get after I finished squealing in delight.

The kiss had conditions, though: it had to occur after presentation, before ingestion. I tried it once the other way and Jeff objected.

“Ew,” he’d said. “Don’t ever kiss me after you eat one of those!”

After that, he always insisted on that order, sometimes going as far as keeping them way above me with his outstretched arm. “Kiss first!” he’d grin. And I would happily oblige.

My own personal Peeps Fest officially begins on April 2nd, specifically planned to not coincide with April 1st. Just about that time those little chicky delights start popping up in corner pharmacies, eventually finding their way to mega-supermarket shelves. The first time I ever saw a color coordinated Peeps aisle was in the Adrian Walmart. Baskets, boxes, artificial grass, single color M&Ms, and Peeps of every color stood in tiny little color-segregated communities. My little mind was blown – what a fantastic idea!

That’s about when my display gets displayed, as well. The collection grows a little larger every year. Peeps trinkets, and magnets, and baskets, and stuffed toys reappear. The real Peeps disappear… very slowly, mostly to allow appropriate lengths of time for proper stale-ing. Peeps Fest ends when the edibles run out, or have been stale-ified beyond the limits of what I believe my teeth should be subjected to.

This year, pre-Peeps-Season, I followed an innocent link to clearance items. As you might imagine, one Peep led to another. Truthfully, by the time the medium sized box arrived, I wasn’t at all sure what I had ordered. I brought it to work, to allow others to share in the happiness mystery. While in progress, I was asked, “Why did Peeps send you a box?” They didn’t. I sent me the box. I Peeps-presented myself. Why? Just trying to be responsible for my own happiness.

Sometimes, my display gets displayed earlier than others. This has been a later year. Partly, because I had real reservations about displaying my newly re-revised attitude, aka how I was before. Before everything. Before, well, to quote Lisbeth Salander, “Before all the evil…”

My “before” is not nearly so novel-melodramatic, but it is an extremely well-defined moment in time.

Sunday, April 13th became an absolute and cruelly-marked moment in time for residents of Overland, Kansas. On the eve of Pesach, a grandfather and grandson, outside a Jewish community center, and a woman visiting her mother at a Jewish retirement home were gunned down. The act was a hate crime.

The intended targets were to be Jewish. They were not. They were Christians; two Methodists and one Catholic. The duo were present for a singing competition; the daughter visiting. All can be defined as participating in harmony, with no qualms about the religious references or location of events or buildings. They were also at the wrong place, at the wrong time. When the mother of the teenager, and daughter to the grandfather), arrived at the community center, she says she, “”knew immediately that they were in heaven.” I understand that.

Pesach comes from the Hebrew root Pei-Samekh-Cheit, which means to pass over, or to spare. If only those bullets had passed over, or spared.

My wind-down thought this week ends paralleling Peeps and the tendency to hoard, stretch and pull and grab at what we think we want.

What constitutes “happy”?

Yesterday, I might have held up, “generating fun, being silly without fear of having to explain an unexplainable switch from near darkness to radiant light.”

Easily, that type of “happy” stales in comparison.

An encompassing, revised definition is hard to come by.

It seems easier to backwards-define:

Not living in fear of entering a house of worship or community center, whether holding the same philosophies, or not.

Not living in fear of attending school; small or large; elementary, secondary, public, private, secular or non.

Not existing in martyrdom, not being exiled, not being segregated, not persecuted;

Not living in fear of losing my life based on my beliefs, or anyone else’s.

Somberly, as far as I can tell, “happy” is mostly just “not.”

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Quote for the week:

“When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” Peace Pilgrim